SLPP MP Namal Rajapaksa, held in remand custody, told supporters that the challenges he faces would make him stronger rather than break him, in a message released as his party held its “Janasatana” rally in Anuradhapura.
“I see you from the iron bars of the Colombo Remand Prison. Your enthusiastic support is a great inspiration to me,” he said, according to the Daily Mirror.
Quoting former South African President Nelson Mandela, Rajapaksa said difficulties could break some people but make others stronger. “We are people who become stronger in the face of difficulties. My beloved father taught me the lesson of becoming stronger in the face of challenges,” he said.
He said he considered it a privilege to lead a political movement alongside people prepared to face difficulties.
The rally went ahead without him
The message was delivered to a rally Rajapaksa had been due to headline. His father, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, attended in his place. The SLPP said the event would proceed as planned despite the arrest.
Rajapaksa was remanded by order of a magistrate following action by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, and the Attorney General has since directed the CID to name him as a suspect in the Airbus commission inquiry.
The President answered the same afternoon
Speaking at an NPP farmers’ rally in Polonnaruwa hours later, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake dismissed the political-revenge framing without naming Rajapaksa, saying appeals to sympathy would not stop prosecutions: “Shedding tears only after they are caught is useless.”
The two rallies, held the same day roughly 60 kilometres apart, set out the competing accounts of the prosecutions now running against senior opposition figures.
Who read it out
NewsFirst reported that the message was read to the rally by the SLPP’s spokesperson, Sanjeewa Erimanna, a detail the Daily Mirror’s account omits. NewsFirst also confirms that the remand of Rajapaksa, the party’s National Organiser, was one of the central themes of the event, and that the party framed the rally around what it called a government oppressing the people.
Not reported
Neither report says how the message was conveyed out of the prison, whether it was written or dictated, or when it was composed. Neither gives attendance figures for the Anuradhapura event.
